"BBC iPlayer will continue to surface archive content."
?
The Beeb is to shut its online paid-for streaming service BBC Store from November, just 18 months after it launched. The online facility failed to get off the ground against stiff competition from Netflix and Amazon. Its closure comes as Old Auntie is under increasing pressure to generate cash outside the Licence Fee. …
While much of the popular older material may be available on Netflix (Top Gear, post 2005 Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Yes Minister) the BBC Store did offer some old but less popular and less available material - eg Goodies, and Play for Today type material.
It seems while the BBC has been encouraged to make its archives available, there isn't enough interest in them as a whole to make it feasible in online format.
"... there isn't enough interest in them as a whole to make it feasible in online format"
I think there is enough interest: I'd love to watch stuff from 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, but as a licence payer I don't see why I need to pay again to do so.
The programmes purchased in the Store didn't appear in iPlayer on TVs and consoles, you could only download on the mobile version of iPlayer, and you had to go to a website to buy them.
If they'd have finished the job it might have been more successful.
I'd like DVDs that are a sensible price, instead ox x2 to x4 Hollywood recent releases. Like it's not like they HAVE to sell the stuff to recover the studio budget?
BBC & RTE seem very greedy on prices, esp compared to old ITV shows.
I'm not interested in subscriptions to ANYTHING now, and in the past only had Sky as the dish isn't speed and cap limited like rural broadband.
Buying individual programs mean you get what you pay for, and still have them even if no internet.
"The Charter defines the main objective of the BBC as the promotion of six public purposes. These are:
...
Promoting education and learning
Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence
..."
As such I think there should (must?) be sections of the BBC archive permanently available on iPlayer (I know, with different production companies involved the rights may get complicated). My science wishlist would start with things like...
Life Story (the Crick and Watson dramatisation they did with Jeff Goldblum, Tim Piggot Smith and Juliet Stevenson).
Breaking The Code (Derek Jacobi as Alan Turing)
Einstein and Eddington (with Andy Serkis and David Tennant)
Breaking the Mould (Dominic West and Denis Lawson as Florey and Fleming)
I think this clearly demonstrates that the only thing keeping the BBC alive is state protection, and if it were left up to the democratic vote of consumers' wallets then it would disappear in a bureaucratic puff of smoke.
The question then is: should the largely disinterested majority be forced to fund, through involuntary taxation, something that is apparently only of interest to an economically non-viable minority (as the BBC itself concedes), where the thing in question is merely trivial entertainment rather than some life-or-death public utility?
In other words, let BBC fans pay for it, if they're that passionate about it, and leave the rest of us to decide if, when and who we pay for entertainment.
However it is because it is funded by the license player you can get all the obscure stuff and well as some quality stuff.
Got kids?
Compare Cbeebies / CBBC to Nickelodeon or Pop and you very quickly realise what you pay for.
That obscure TV show only appealing to 50,000 people, no chance on commercial.
So tell me, if we make it for "fee payers only" can we prevent every single person not paying listening to the radio, accessing all the websites, going to the free / discounted concerts and the mass of everything else they do?
Oh sorry silly me, they only do BBC TV.
The extortion tax does not include radio. Why do BBC fans always throw in the radio as if adds value to the tax? You might as well throw oxygen and sunlight in as they are not included in the tax either. When they stop pissing away money on a handful of lucky stars/presenters and cancel the champaign lunches for the upper management I'll give a shit.
Or pissing away money offering 10% extra in vouchers to people who used their service... it was a good service, like an online store version of the little BBC shop near Oxford Circus. Can't see why it wasn't integrated with iPlayer, though, as some form of "pass-holder area'.
Sky does it. Virgin does it. Basically every TV company in the world does it. So why can't the BBC?
The fact that the BBC may claim this is difficult is not my problem. Why should I have money stolen from my wallet just to spare some company the ordeal of competing in the free market, because their business model is predicated upon the preservation of "obscure stuff" that nobody watches, nobody pays for, and therefore must be essentially tax funded?
The world is full of "obscure stuff" of interest only to tiny minorities. Should I be forced to pay for all of it?
RCA's Capacitance Electronic Disc (an ill-fated analogue video disc system from the early 60s) is an extremely obscure but collectable curio that most people have never even heard of. Should we have a "license fee" to ensure that this retro junk remains available for all time?
How about the Volugrafo Bimbo, an obscure Italian car from the 1940s? Should we have a global "Bimbo Tax" to ensure that all three of the world's population interested in this post-war garbage can continue to drive around like a trio of greaseball poseurs?
Only those interested in the obscure should have to pay for it. Frankly, only those interested in anything should have to pay for it. If they don't want to pay for it, then clearly they weren't really that interested in it, so the fact that it then slips into the abyss is no great loss, and certainly nothing whatsoever to do with me.
Actually I agree...
Thefore can I not subsidise the following I don't use except when I need them.
Libraries
Buses
Trains (both regular and underground)
Police
Fire Brigade
Ambulances
Canals
Flood defences
The NHS
Youth services
Council Houses
Pensions
Welfare claimants
Disabled people.
"I think this clearly demonstrates that the only thing keeping the BBC alive is state protection, and if it were left up to the democratic vote of consumers' wallets then it would disappear in a bureaucratic puff of smoke."
I disagree. There's plenty of BBC-originated content that I would be happy to buy in a sensible form (although it also makes a lot of dross that I would not want to purchase).
The problem seems mostly to be that while the BBC is supported by the TV Licence income, it appears to be incapable of properly building (and promoting) decent mechanisms for operating in a commercial manner.
I don't have a license and don't abuse that, to the point I'm not even sure what the BBC puts out now.
The fact t I can't legally watch/stream any other live broadcast media without funding the BBC machine, creeps* and propaganda leaves me less impressed or bothered about their future.
In fact now I think about it, dear beeb go fuck yourself and your license lock-in.
* Jimmy Savile was a highly valued BBC employee for a long time, obviously he can't have acted alone but once dead he took the full blame.
Because your phone can also play TV content with the iPlayer app. Simple. Same reason you still need a TV licence if you have a device capable of receiving OTA TV broadcasts even if you never plug the thing into an aerial/STB-connected-to-aerial-or-TVOIP-feed.
Now if they released a radio-only iPlayer app that would be different.
Same reason you still need a TV licence if you have a device capable of receiving OTA TV broadcasts even if you never plug the thing into an aerial/STB-connected-to-aerial-or-TVOIP-feed.
Completely and utterly wrong, you only need one if you watch or record live TV (and now iPlayer)
I have 3 TVs in my house and no licence, completely legally, one TV is plugged into my PC as a monitor, one is plugged into the XBOX in my sons room and the other is on the blink. No aerials have ever been plugged in, the nice Capita (is it still Capita?) hired thugs turn up every now and then, see the aerial is on the opposite side of the room to the TV and leave happy. Never needed to pay for one, never will and TV Licensing give me a shiny letter saying I don't need one.
> Same reason you still need a TV licence if you have a device capable of receiving OTA TV broadcasts even if you never plug the thing into an aerial/STB-connected-to-aerial-or-TVOIP-feed.
> I have 3 TVs in my house and no licence
My fear is that the Capita goons are not beyond attempting to use the same 'device capable of receiving' argument.
Hence I pre-emptively filled the terrestrial arial and cable connectors of my TV with Sugru so there can be no doubt that the device cannot be used for licensable activity.
An ounce of prevention, etc ...
My fear is that the Capita goons are not beyond attempting to use the same 'device capable of receiving' argument.
They can try, but then you just point them to the TV Licensing website and show them the section that states "only if you watch/record live TV (and iPlayer)"
Be polite, but don't take any shit from them, they live to intimidate and there's nothing more frustrating for them than being warmly welcomed in and quoted their own rules.
How magnanimous of them.
I'd be inclined to ask why I should have to prove I don't need a TV license at all, particularly to some glorified debt collection agency acting on an entirely fictional debt, where they're merely opportunistically presuming that there may be a debt.
If actual debt collectors operated like that, they'd be shut down and sent to prison.
Maybe Tesco, Halfords and Starbucks should start sending goons on door-to-door harassment campaigns, demanding that people prove they don't owe them any money, then issue shiny certificates when they manage to prove what good little boys and girls they are.
"Now if they released a radio-only iPlayer app that would be different."
I don't know what the Android/Windows phone versions do, but there are separate applications on my iPhone for TV and Radio, and yes, the radio only application does prompt me to log in - for the moment, I can press the 'do it later' button. The iPlayer radio app does let you scroll back through schedules for catch-up radio.
The BBC do provide two separate apps,one for tv,one for radio only.
I have been trying to find info on what the BBC intend to do about folk like me who ditched tv tax licence 15 years ago and have never ever watched a thing since but I do make use of the radio only app.,cos radio licences went out in 1950's and if they think I'm paying a full tv tax for radio only,they can get stuffed,but of course there is no info available that I can find that explains what they plan to do about radio app only users..
If you want to use the tv app,you have to install their media app as well,if you only use radio app you don't need the media app,so it should be easy for BBC to tell if you only use radio app..
"Customers who have bought and downloaded copies of major BBC series... are being offered the choice of an Amazon voucher worth 10 per cent more than the value of their online library or a cash refund of the equivalent value."
"However, customers who purchased a series pass will be able to access their remaining episodes until November."
Did people actually buy something tangible, downloaded, stored and watchable on their PC or did they buy a 'pass/licence' to stream-watch something stored by the BBC?
Basically it was streamable ("watch online") or downloadable into their crappy player ("BBC Store Downloader", Mac and Windows only).
In short, the actual experience was shite. No sending it to my TV or mobile devices, and thus entirely pointless. I bought one thing and gave up. This may well be a key reason why no-one is using it. If it had been directly plugged into iPlayer and thus accessible via any iPlayer device, Auntie may have had a chance, although yes people are generally up for bulk subscription streaming and not one-off 'purchases' these days it seems...
That's the problem, everyone wants you to "buy" so you think you own it, or rent it, so you think you own it....but you own nothing, if/when they pull the plug.
Music
TV Shows
Films
Let's get going on it, most people do not "own" their phone until the 2 year contract is up....then get a new one, so it is never really theirs, if they fail to pay every month the tel company can get the phone back.
People think they own cars....they are leased, if the lease company goes bang, someone is entitled to come and collect the car...after x years they come and get it anyway...it's not yours.
Everyone has adopted the Gillette model.....if you do not pay monthly, then it ceases to be useful and you have nothing,
Even DVDs they will change format, stopping sellnig DVD players and you have no choice but to buy the new format when your machine goes wrong......video anyone?